The Legend of Raenyn Jyhl: The Child of Destiny
by Brokenpillow
Summary: After the swordsman Drahmon Morh murders Raenyn Jyhl's father, he takes to the boy, claiming to be his uncle. Knowing who and what Raenyn really is, he trains him with the fight and survive. Ten years later, Drahmon vanishes within a storm, and Raenyn J
1. Chapter One

Chapter One  
The day was one of absolute brilliance. An aquatic sky with comely clouds reigned overhead, a dominating sun at its eastern end. It began with rays of darling light that worked their way across the horizon, shooting past the mountains and through the forests, painting the sky pink as they came. Assorted hues of lavender and waves of orange and red slowly shifted, and when they disappeared, they left a blanket of the bluest blue to ceiling the entire earth.  
Deep within the western wood, the light of day lanced in between each obstacle, pierced all shadows, splitting them apart, and raced ahead into the wood where it echoed on into a clearing. Inside the midst of the tendered land, nature guarded a small stone cottage and garden yard. The home was a wonderful work of hard hands, crafted close with a careful blend of skill and patience. It held the look of the man who made it. Past the thin mist of smoke that trailed from its squat chimney, and on into the yard behind it, that man stood with a sword in hand, beside a boy sharing his same features, surrounded by a set of head-tall wooden pillars. He looked to the boy with a hardened face.  
"Grace young Raenyn," he was saying. The man shifted his gaze. "Every good swordsman must have grace." He caught the sun's glare along the blade of his sword as he brought it up, slowly moving his wrist around in lift. The boy eyed the steel anxiously, and studied the glimmer of light that was riding up the length of it. Then his father stopped the weapon's ascent, and the shimmer died down into a glint of sparkling silver that reflected from Raenyn's eyes. Suddenly, the light gave birth to enchanting speed, flashing before him like magic. Raenyn stepped back instinctively, shielding his face, and then he steadied quickly to witness the movement as it continued. His father lashed out with the weapon, striking one of the wooden beams, but just before the sword could stick, he pivoted, and cut into another. The man twisted and turned, each time hitting a different target, until he had struck them all, whereupon he let the weapon rest, three inches deep, within the last. Raenyn blinked. "With grace," his father said, kneeling down, "you can conquer an army without the effort of more brutish warriors. Speed and skill, son, will mark your every strike as destiny would ride your tracks. At any rate boy, as I should speak of fate, you should know that those steps and those strikes coincide."  
Raenyn swallowed, uncertain. "What do you mean father?"  
"You are a swordsman, by blood. You have been chosen to meet with steel. You were always meant to embrace the blade."  
He smiled generously, made wild the hair on Raenyn's head, and stood.  
"And you will learn to be the best."  
Then he took the sword he had sheathed inside the beam, gripping the handle tight. With a quick jerk, he freed the steel and flipping the weapon around, placed it home into the scabbard tied at his broad belt. He tapped the hilt and guard gingerly, regarding Raenyn with a pair of ebony eyes.  
"After we eat, you'll take to practice for the day. To be the best fighter, Raenyn, you must first practice to be the better one."  
Raenyn nodded, almost smiling, and followed his father to the little cottage. They ate lightly at a little meal of dried meat and bread, and after sharing a small portion of ale, tended to the hearth, and left. On their way out, Raenyn took up a pair of wooden swords leaning by the doorway, and rushed on to keep up with his father.  
The two practiced by the wooden beams for two hours. Raenyn worked hard to follow his father's lead, swinging where he was told to, moving as he was bid, until it was suggested to rest. He had been learning swordplay since he was seven, and at thirteen, had been told by his father that he had more skill with sword than most men twice his age.  
"Raenyn, you are bonding with the blade better by the day."  
Raenyn Jyhl smiled. He did so as his father, and at a glance, if the two were seen even, apart at separate days, those who would remember their faces would know them easily as father and son. The senior Jyhl was a tall man, with broad shoulders and heavy hands. His face, unlike his son's, was hardened and more square, but his features, however, were without compare; he and his son both had a set of black eyes, a perfectly placed nose, high cheekbones, and a well curved mouth. Raenyn was still a boy, so he had yet to build height and weight, but he was a boy of great credit nonetheless. He had lived in the forest since he was born, and was bred to battle its sources to survive. He had hunted since he was three, began labor chores at five, and in shape to begin swordplay, started in two short years to come. His father continued to stare at him, remembering each day he had lived. He was without a doubt proud to have him as his son.  
"Keep to the beams."  
He grabbed the other wooden sword, and handed it to his son. Raenyn took it, his features curving curiously.  
"Are you leaving?"  
His father nodded. "Just for a while."  
"Where?"  
"Our neighbor, a mile south, has invited me to hunt with him. We are in need of meat, so I agreed."  
"And I am to stay?"  
The big man frowned. "To practice, yes."  
"I can fire a bow and throw the knife as good as any hunter in this wood."  
"Almost," his father replied, giving Raenyn a loose smile. "But it is not your skill at hunting that I test; it is your skill with the sword. Keep to the beams, boy."  
"When will you return?"  
"I won't be long. At any rate, we hunt at half a mile away. If the sun sets too soon, keep up the hearth wood, and feed yourself the last of the meat. There will be more of it by tonight, I assure you."  
His father stepped away from him, and as he turned to go, he scuffed Raenyn's hair a second time. Then he went.  
"Keep to the beams," he shouted back. "Watch your feet."  
Raenyn looked down and made a face. His feet. His father always stressed about his ability to move. One step ahead could give his sword a yard more to reach. It was that one increment, within every inch, that would serve him. The delicate details, he knew, were always the ones that would save his life. A moment later, his father came again, riding a mighty stallion. He looked down at Raenyn, shifted his weight on the saddle, and adjusted the longbow that hung along side it. He spoke then to his son, the last words that Raenyn would ever hear him say.  
"I will be back home again soon," he said. "Practice, my boy. Be the best!"  
Then he waved good-bye, wheeled the horse around, and rode off down a path, disappearing into the trees. Raenyn watched him ride until he was gone, and then taking up his sword to practice, did just that.  
  
Raenyn's father had met up with his hunting friend and had been tracking with him for several hours when they first caught sight of their prey. Both of them stationed themselves a good distance from the beast, a massive black stag, flanking it from the brush. There, they advanced as the animal stopped to graze, and each of them reached behind them, where a quiver of arrows was tied close with a series of leather strips. The two exchanged a set of nods, ceased to stalk, and then drew forth their ammunition, sliding the arrows out slowly. Once free, they applied them to their bowstrings and began to advance again, pulling them back.  
Then something stirred the grounds, a sound that the animal more sensed than its hunter's heard, and it looked up to investigate, its snout resting as it breathed, a mouthful of wild grass waiting beyond its teeth. Raenyn's father made a face, turned from the stag to his companion, and gestured for silence, shrugging slightly. He nodded with a smile, looking again to the beast, but as soon as he had shifted his gaze, he recalled two shapes sneaking up behind the other hunter, two shadows of men that he had overlooked at the same time he saw them.  
He didn't have the time to warn him, and brought up his bow to fend them off. The glint of steel unsheathed at the strangers' sides took him away from any caution that had come, and without uttering a word, he released the arrow. One of the men dropped like a stone, and as the hunter turned to face the other, he fell back and killed him as well, sending an arrow into his neck. Raenyn's father drew his bowstring back a second time, crouching down, and looked about. A few birds took wing and spilled off into the sky, shrieking madly, and the stag darted away into a thick of trees.  
The one hunter pushed the dead brigand from him and stood, notching another arrow. He gazed down at the dead men, and studied them. They were dressed in worn leather, held tight where it would fall by thick bands of hide and ties of rope and cord. They were filthy men, and he recognized them at once as thieves from the village five miles away. Raenyn's father approached him through the tall grass and stopped to study the men as well. He frowned, as if tasting something sour, turning to his friend.  
"What business brings them here?"  
The hunter shrugged, uncertain. "Food, perhaps."  
"I think not," the swordsman disagreed, shaking his head. "That elk would have been best for the taking once it was dead. Besides, I think any thief from the village would rather pick a purse or borrow a loaf of bread that travel five miles to private forest grounds." "What hunter hunts with a short sword, if even for that?"  
Raenyn's father looked about, holding his breath. "I do not think that they were hunting elk, my friend."  
"Assassins?"  
"No. An assassin would have thrown his sword from the trees."  
"Then I don't understand."  
"You don't owe any coin at the village?"  
The hunter shook his head quickly, "No coin, bad favors, or any ill- meetings with anyone these thieves would hire to, if that's what they really are."  
Then a thought hammered into the swordsman's head. "They are thieves, my friend, but they sought to steal something far from coin."  
The hunter looked around quickly, suddenly uneasy, and Raenyn's father finished without blinking, leaning in close.  
"They've come to take our attention."  
Slowly, the two rose from the grass to see a wealth of men stationed where the swordsmen had been. There were a dozen of them in all, each looking like the two whom had died, each equipped with the same short, broad swords. The hunters met their maniacal stares, and then the lot of them started forward, calling out some battle cry.  
Two men fell dead right away, and arrow appearing in each of them, and as they fell and the others charged, the hunters cast their bows aside. Raenyn's father drew his sword, unsheathing it with the flick of his wrist, and the man beside him gripped a set of wide hunting knives. With little else to do, they braced for their attackers, raising their weapons up. Another man died as the one hunter stuck him with a dagger, and a second fell as he sliced him along the legs. Raenyn's father met the men as well, and within a second had sent three of them to the wild grass, either dead or dying. Then the thieves were all around them, and seemingly at the same time, they struck.  
The hunter friend managed to fell one last brigand before he was killed, stabbed through the back before he had the chance to bring his other hunting knife to bear. Raenyn's father watched him fall, but put the image aside to save himself from the same fate. He had met with the man only once before, at the village, and it was there that he been invited to hunt. It was there as well, that he had judged the man, by his talk and walk, and he knew he was no fighter. He felt foolish then, for letting him die. He should have had him stand back while he took them all on. The combined skill of those who remained was still not enough to best him, and when they were all dead or driven off, he would investigate the matter on his own.  
He parried a wild blow, leaned in, and sent a thief to the ground with a powerful punch. As he collapsed, he stabbed him quickly, and then danced back to slay another. He turned, killing a third, and forging a newfound balance with what ground he had gained, careened into the rest and quickly killed them all. The swordsman wiped his blade off on one of the dead, dragging it along the man's dirty shirt. He spat at the bodies and sheathing his sword, turned to his fallen friend.  
The man whom the hunter had cut at the legs lunged for him suddenly, with surprising speed, his sword wrapped tight within white fingers. Raenyn's father stumbled back, unaware and certain of his own demise. But a sound of something heavy beat madly at the air, and turning to the source, he saw a black blade spinning towards them just before it planted itself within the brigand's ribs, pitching him back. The swordsman stepped away, and looked to the one who had saved his life, watching him approach.  
His savior was a tall man, built much like him, with darker features and long black hair. He had it tied back at the base of his neck with a silver headpiece, where a black cloak started and flowered down to a pair of fashioned leather boots with metal soles. His face was almost insidious, forming an expression the suggested both friend and foe, with a set of blue eyes both awesome and hinting sinister. As a man who just saved his life, Raenyn's father trusted him with it despite the fact that he had never seen him before.  
"Thank you, stranger."  
The man nodded as he came close, and wrenched the sword he had thrown free from the bones it was wedged between. There was a savage crack as he took the weapon out, and after Raenyn's father winced a little from hearing it, he studied the sword just before the stranger placed it within his cloak where a sheath lay hidden at his side. It was a wicked looking thing, almost burdened by its own beauty and seemingly uncertain design. The sword resembled any long sword, at four feet of blade with an eight- inch grip, but was decorated beyond any basic blacksmith skill. The metal used to create it failed to reflect the light, as it was a deep onyx, and the shape of it caught the darkness that it looked. It was far from dull. For a foot of the double-edged blade, the weapon started normally, but from there it grew a little broader and became serrated until six inches of steel remained, where the tip glistened a bit from a fine edge that without reason, could cut through anything it was set against. The handle rested wrapped in black leather just under a wide guard of shimmering silver, and it ended at an egg-shaped pommel, of silver as well.  
The swordsman took his attention from the weapon as soon as it slipped from view, and gave it instead to the stranger it belonged to. The man returned his regard with a smile that somehow inspired fear rather that what it was intended to.  
"These brigands never listen," he said. "Do they?"  
"I think not."  
The stranger shook his head, and lost his smile, his icy blue eyes becoming crystal. "I paid them well and gave them strict instruction to kill only your companion."  
Raenyn's father tensed, his hand easing over the handle of his sword. He swallowed. "What is it stranger, that you want?"  
"It isn't often I'm asked that," the man replied, smiling again. "But that such an occasion is gifted to me, I find it under obligation to reply."  
"Well then?"  
The dark man's demeanor diminished into something darker still.  
"I've come for your son, senior Jyhl."  
Raenyn's father stepped back, his sword suddenly in hand, but the stranger didn't flinch.  
"You'll have no business with my boy. How do you know my name?"  
"It belongs to you," the man replied promptly. "And I believed, in order to make all of this work right, I should know everything about you that there is to know. I took to know it all quickly, this last week."  
"Then you'll be good enough to forget it," retorted the swordsman, raising his weapon. "You've no business with the life of my son, or that which is my own."  
The stranger stared at him innocently. "I am sorry, senior Jyhl, but what business I take to has already been decided, and I apologize again, because despite what you might assume, you are in no position nor possess the power to even think to try to stop me."  
The swordsman shook once with rage, and then shot forward. His opponent waited patiently for him to come. When he did, sword level, all his years of training and skill and grace measured up to nothing. The stranger's cloak flared out and he stepped aside, effortlessly, drawing his sword at the same time so fast it could not be seen. He met Raenyn's father in mid-swing, cleaving him quickly from his shoulder to waist, and before the man could fall, he had sheathed his sword and turned to watch him do so. The swordsman staggered weakly, gaping at reality in disbelief. Then he fell, rolling over, looking up at his killer as he bled away what life he still had left. He coughed once as the stranger stepped toward him.  
"What is it.that you want.with my son?"  
"It's complicated." The stranger studied him then, tilting his head a little. He wanted to know what Raenyn Jyhl looked like. He wanted to know what child to seek out when he took to the forest. He looked away from the swordsman, glanced at all the others who had died, and then he turned around completely, scanning the small valley, questioning the entire area with a solemn sigh. At last, he shifted his gaze again and regarded the dying man once more.  
"Now, where did you leave that bastard stallion?"  
Raenyn's father was suddenly blind. He couldn't breath. Choking on death as it pushed the air from his lungs, he uttered one last word before he passed on, his hand gripping his sword so tight the skin over his knuckles began to stretch.  
"Raenyn." he whispered softly, barely.  
And then he died. 


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two  
Raenyn Jyhl stirred the hearth wood, and when he saw the burning coals that had been hiding away, took two pieces of split timber and hid them again. He leaned close, almost closing his eyes, and breathed lightly on the coals to start them up, and as a few flames licked at the firewood hungrily, the boy backed away, and left them to feast. Then he pushed himself from the hearth and stood, dusting the ashes from his legs. He took a few steps toward one of the walls and looked out a small window.  
It was getting late. He traced the light as it faded with the setting sun, and began to wonder where his father was. He looked out into the growing night a moment longer and then wandered off to take up other things. Raenyn could wonder and manage the cottage at the same time.  
He traveled to a table, where two lanterns sat, and taking his time to light them both, took them up. He hung one over the table, and carried the other to the window. As he placed it onto a metal hook that had been hammered there, he gazed out the window again. This time he caught sight of a shadow riding towards him, slowly approaching as the night sheltered shadow.  
Quickly, he ran from the window and went for the door, pushing it open feverishly. Standing in the light of the open entrance, he waited for his father to come, smiling with anxiety.  
"I see smoke," said the rider. "A fire then, that means, and what a chill it fights. It's best you close the door to keep the cottage content, else you plan to warm the rest of the world as well."  
Raenyn froze. His smile vanished. His breathing ceased. The rider was not his father. As the stranger rode closer, coming to the stone home, Raenyn looked at him with worry when he brought the horse into the house light. The stranger stopped there, to let the boy study him.  
"Raenyn Jyhl, lad?"  
Raenyn took a step back as the man removed himself from the saddle. His eyes drifted from the silver of his boot-bottoms to the glint of something else at the man's side as his cloak waved when he landed. Then he looked up, and met the rider's sapphire eyes. The man smiled at him wryly.  
"That is your name, isn't it?"  
Raenyn nodded slowly, moving away a little more as the man advanced. His eyes darted to the horse, his father's steed. Where was his father? It was then, when the horse stepped a tiny bit to the side, that the lanterns in the house shown something misshapen hiding beneath a cloak, behind the saddle, laying across the back of the stallion. It was a man, he knew, because he could see the bottoms of his leather breeches and the worn boots. He coughed, knowing who it was right away. Those boots belonged to his father. Backing within the house, he reached with trembling fingers by the doorway and brought up one of the wooden swords. The stranger eyed the blade carefully, and then his eyes shot to the boy again. Raenyn stepped forward a little in defiance.  
"What have you done to my father?"  
"Now listen, lad."  
Raenyn wasn't about to comply kindly. "My father! What have you done with him?"  
The stranger licked his lips, thinking for a moment, his eyes drifting. Then they came back, suddenly, making Raenyn jump. He gestured to the practice sword in Raenyn's hand.  
"I'd rather talk without you so armed, junior Jyhl."  
"I'd sooner drop you," he stepped forward more. "Now tell me what you've done with my father!"  
The man regarded the boy with his smile a second time, and for a moment, did nothing else. Raenyn reminded him of his own childhood. The way he held the sword, the manner at which he would wield it when the time came. The tenacity of his soul.  
Suddenly, he lashed out, catching Raenyn by surprise, and cat-quick, he stepped into the boy, and somehow, as he stepped away, he was gripping the wooden sword, flipping it around. Raenyn Jyhl looked down at his empty hands with astonishment, and then stumbled back into the house and closed the door hard. The stranger blinked, tapping the sword at his side, stroking his chin with a gloved hand. He stepped toward the door. Bringing the weapon up, he knocked on the wood with it.  
"Young man," he said softly. "I am not your enemy. I mean you no woe, junior Jyhl."  
Raenyn, standing from the door and looking at it as if it were the man, wasn't in the least bit reassured.  
"My father lies dead, on the back of his own horse; a steed that you rode in on! Your intentions are without resolve."  
"Wisely said, lad, but just the same, neither is your assumption," the man moved away from the door entirely, and stood between the cottage and the horse. He looked at the wooden sword once more.  
"It was not I who had your father slain."  
Raenyn had never thought of that, but the thought nonetheless did nothing to calm him. His father was dead despite that, and even if it were true, the man who claimed such was a stranger to him. Yet, the man had not come riding in eagerly, and he did not harm him when he for certain, had the chance.  
"Who are you?"  
The stranger grinned for a moment, knowing who he was, but the boy knew nothing of him, so his face went rigid instead.  
"My name, junior Jyhl, is Drahmon Mohr."  
"How do you know my name?"  
Drahmon stepped towards the door again. "What uncle, boy, would not know the name of his own nephew?"  
Uncle? Raenyn gazed down, thinking. His father never spoke of a brother, nor of a friend who could be such by years. His mother, whom he never knew, was told to him by his father, as well, to be without kin. How could this man Drahmon Mohr possibly be is uncle?  
"And now that I'm no stranger, and clearly don't plan to do you harm, why not show a member of the family a little hospitality? It's as cold as old hag's heart out here."  
Raenyn turned around, went to the table, and grabbed a knife there, holding it firm. He paused, thinking again. What if this man wasn't his uncle? What if he was? It was obvious, either way, that he hadn't issued any intent to hurt him. He was a safe stranger, Raenyn decided then, but whether or not he could be trusted was still a matter he'd not soon dismiss.  
"Lad?"  
Drahmon Mohr waited a moment longer, and had just gripped his sword handle when he heard the door creak. He let his weapon go, looking up. Raenyn pushed the door open, slowly, and met his gaze. Drahmon glanced down at the dagger in his hand, and took up the wooden sword. Then he stepped toward Raenyn with a smile. The boy tensed again, the knife ready.  
Suddenly, the wooden sword flipped from Drahmon's fingers, spun around once, and as it fell, the swordsman caught it by the blade, never looking at it once. He kept his eyes on Raenyn, and with that, extended the weapon to him, holding the handle before his face. Slowly, it was taken from him, and holding it again, Raenyn looked down at the timber blade sadly.  
"Let us go inside, lad." He set his hand on the Raenyn's shoulder as he started to cry. "You know well the news, but there are things still that I have yet to tell you."  
He then led the boy inside, closed the door, and once seated before the hearth, told him everything that had happened, although he took to change some specifics to keep his cover.  
"I was traveling for days to meet with him," he was saying. "I hadn't talked to him for years."  
"Why?"  
"Because I am the brother he wished he never had."  
"Why?"  
Drahmon paused to think of what to say. "Because our mother, junior Jyhl, was a woman without reputation, and that I defended her instead of run with him broke us apart from brotherhood."  
"He never told me he had a brother."  
"And now," replied Drahmon, "you know why."  
Raenyn reviewed a few things inside his head. "Why was it you never visited before?"  
"I was not welcome."  
"Then how was it that you knew me?"  
Drahmon wasn't prepared for that, but he was ready to answer him within seconds. "I knew your mother."  
"My mother?" Raenyn was suddenly shaken. "You knew my mother?"  
"I did," Drahmon paused. "Food boy, is there any at hand?"  
Raenyn nodded and moved to retrieve the last of the dried meat. He set it on a table by the hearth, went back to fetch some bread and ale, and setting them down as well, ushered Drahmon to continue. The man did so, chewing on a shard of elk jerky.  
"She spoke of you, many times."  
"What was she like?"  
Drahmon stopped chewing, and swallowed hard. He regarded Raenyn uneasily. "You mean to say that you don't know?"  
Raenyn looked away, shaking his head. He stared into the fire. "I never knew my mother, and my father hardly spoke of her."  
Drahmon smiled to himself. It was easy then.  
"She was a beautiful woman, lad," he broke off a piece of bread and bit into it. Then he washed it down with a swallow of ale. "She was tall and slender, with blonde hair.silver eyes."  
"Silver?"  
"Aye, one thing of many, that set her apart. Ancient eyes of magic, boy."  
Raenyn tried to imagine her as Drahmon spoke, closing his eyes. He had never seen a woman, and that the first he would view would be within his head, he was free to imagine the one most divine. He smiled, almost knowing his mother there, and opened his eyes.  
Drahmon continued. "But to your father, junior Jyhl."  
The boy lost his smile as he remembered.  
"I had decided to seek him out, and visit his son, of whom his mother spoke of missing so. I knew where he had traveled to, to live and build his home and family, to start a life, so I set off. After a week, perhaps, I was directed to this cottage, and earlier this day, as I ventured here, I encountered my brother hunting. He was with another man, I think."  
"A hunter friend, he met in the village."  
Drahmon nodded. "Perhaps. But before I could meet with him, I saw that they were under attack. A band of brigands, I think. There have always been rumors of rogue hunters stealing prey, and I guess today, lives as well. There must have been twenty men, junior Jyhl, but that did not stop your father from fighting. He fell ten men before I reached him, cutting them away. When at last I caught up to him, he had fallen, and with that lad I drew my own sword and in my rage, slew what men remained! He never said a word.but I think he heard me promise him I'd take care of you. He died knowing you'd be safe, and I'd swear that my brother spent his days living and caring for nothing and no one else."  
Raenyn was looking at the fire again, breathing softly, remembering his father as he had lived. He recalled his face, his smile, his kind eyes, and his warm embrace. All of that was a memory now, and all of it wasn't real. It never would be. There would be no more times, and no more teaching. There would be no more days nor nights of old stories. There would be nothing. Raenyn slipped into a silent depression, and Drahmon watched him, letting him mourn. Then he stood from his seat by the hearth, and set his hand on the boy's back.  
"See him off in those flames lad," he told him. "For it is there, within that fire, that the same burning soul within him, passes on to you."  
He moved from Raenyn and went for the door. "I'll tend to your father.my brother. Keep the fire going, and then get some sleep. You will need it, junior Jyhl."  
Raenyn didn't hear him speak, and it wasn't until the door had closed behind the man that he realized he had even gone. He kept to the fire, his eyes burning, and for another hour he lost himself to the smoke, and the rest of the world didn't matter to him.  
  
Midnight offered a bright moon to cast light over the forest. The sky held full a store of stars, and the evening itself seemed to dream. All was silent and still. As Drahmon Mohr took the horse through the wood, the dead swordsman bouncing behind him, he took to the night with great reverie. He dwelled in such things as the silence of night, the darkness, and the hobgoblins the mind would make from the smallest shadows. That world to him was the only one existing that held any place of high regard at all. It was all he cared for. The darkness understood him. The shadows shared his life.  
He stopped half a mile from the cottage, where the brigands had been slain, and dismounting, took Raenyn's father from the house with one hand, and threw him into the midst of them. He gathered up all of the fallen, added wild grass to them, and with a spark of flint on the silver sole of his black boot, he set the mess on fire, watching it burn.  
Drahmon stepped away as the flames grew, and heard a clank of metal to metal when his foot fell. Looking down, he moved aside to see the sword that Raenyn's father had used. He reached down and picked it up, holding it in the moonlight to study the steel.  
It was a good sword, crafted at the cost of coin that Raenyn's father probably hardly had. It wasn't anything special, though, and Drahmon thought it better to add it to the flames then keep it close. But just before he tossed the weapon away, he stopped, and examined the blade again. Even though it was simply a well forged sword, he had in mind such a weapon for Raenyn, when the time came. He would need a sword like this one. He tore a cloak from one of the dead men, and wrapped the weapon with it.  
Drahmon paid the flames a minute more of heedless heed, his blue eyes alive inside as they reflected the fire. And then he moved from the fire, mounted the stallion, and after putting the covered sword into a long saddlebag beside him, kicked the animal into a gallop and was off.  
He reached the cottage late, taking his time to arrive once he neared it. He didn't want to wake the boy, whom he knew to be asleep. He saw the boy suffer when he first saw his father, and saw that sorrow take away all his energy when he told him what had happened. The days ahead of them would be long, and Raenyn needed all the rest that could be given.  
Drahmon Mohr tied the horse to a tree near the cottage, and took up the sword he had wrapped when he burned the bodies. A moment later, he went inside the home. He hated the feel of the place. He could sense the emotions and memories that had been made inside it. It truly sickened him, but it was something he'd have to endure.  
He put out the lanterns, tended to the hearth flames, and then searched the house quickly to see where Raenyn had gone to sleep. He found him in a small room, lying on a bed barely big enough for, lost in slumber, within whatever dreams he was apart of there. Drahmon moved close to him, set his father's sword by a table next to the bed, and stepped away. He looked at Raenyn hard.  
The boy, as he rested, offered an image that brought back something in the swordsman's soul, pulling it from a pocket he thought long lost. It was innocence, he knew. It was purity, and perfection. Drahmon watched him rest a little longer, and then pulled away from the boy disgusted. He stopped at the entrance of the room. He could not let such things affect him. He would not allow anything outside him to stop him from what he came to do, and he refused to allow the things inside to gain any ground either. He could not feel like that anymore, anyway. He didn't want to, and it was impossible to even try if ever he felt like he did. To love, or to know it were without reason. They were simply something his heart couldn't handle. 


End file.
